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Artwork related to Avenue S

Hello, I wanted to share some 2D artwork that I created in 2019 when I was taking a course for digital media multi-media design. This was about 2 weeks after going fully remote when I was in MCCC. We had to do a project about how we felt, about isolation and the effects that the pandemic was having on us personally as well as globally. After seeing some the the artworks in Ghost City in Avenue S I thought the theme of my drawings were similar. These representing object that are isolated, but start to make their way outward and over come the barriers and effects from loneliness. Thanks.

student blogs

Avenue S Reflection / Yardley, PA 1997 Presentation Links

Avenue S

Once entering the piece and I first notice the rectangle shapes that automatically depict what many were going through globally during the pandemic having your surroundings boxed in, separated, isolated. The dates on the front of each replicated for me the idea of a Time Capsule, or a day in one’s life that was significant. Whatever content would be inside is going to be meaningful to someone if not me, or create a sense of belonging, interaction that many of us were deprived of. Also, a morbid image was present also that of a mausoleum for remembrance with all the rectangles and having dates on them. Like a piece of each person who had died in some way but was left behind for remembrance when you click on the title. There is sometimes filled with memories, items of the pandemic that we all become familiar with such as nylon gloves. There were so many interesting pieces in Ghost City Avenue S.  I think we were all more at play, willing to dive deep into our imaginations for mental health reasons, something that we were not allowing ourselves to do when things were “normal” and our lives being filled with all the social and professional distractions of everyday living. The opportunity to express ourselves and still have some kind of voice, interaction with life had opened up in so nonconventional ways and the resources around us were used as extension of those surroundings, people or lack of as well to also resist what was happening or have a coping mechanism outside our uncertain worried thoughts by creating. Being reminded and having an archive of all the social aspects we took and still take for granted, and freedoms such as lingering effects when everything seemed to lack life, meaning, interactions, color.

In some of the pieces the movable elements started as a small, isolated piece, boundaries set with their lines which then overflow or expand outwards similar to what happened as things started to open back up in society. We took small steps, still distancing ourselves due to our own comfort levels and willingness to trust again ourselves, others, and powers to be. The shapes filled up at times in a type of unilateral patterns, or in conjunction with each other simultaneously. Then at points there was disbursement of movement  from the inner core to the outer like one reaching out and expanding their presence into one’s surroundings.

The one release and escape during that time was creating art and taking advantage of our resources. Our identities and how they changed were put in flux with the things we no longer had around us, interactions to validate who we are. I think a lot of the Ghost City clips were strongly about one’s identity, fantasy and playing role away from the current world that was being offered with uncertainties, fears, loneliness. Many of the artwork’s movements were morphs or mirrors of each other. Isolated and Alone depicting urban life and the changes brought to social interaction and energy that was once prominent in the streets and neighborhoods amongst each other.

Yardley, Pa 1997

Yardley PA, 1997 Powerpoint Link and Word Doc Reflection Analysis

https://1drv.ms/p/c/cf24af06c39ff09a/EfXrSvq-mi9JrQU5GJWDNIYBhLm3uwHFKglV4QeMqrz8UQ?e=O9jnaZ

Yardey^J PA 1997 ELIT Presentation PDFDownload

Yardley, PA 1997 JNorton Reflection Analysis.docx

https://1drv.ms/p/c/cf24af06c39ff09a/EfXrSvq-mi9JrQU5GJWDNIYBhLm3uwHFKglV4QeMqrz8UQ?e=O9jnaZ

student blogs

Yardley/Avenue s

Yardley, PA 1997

Todd Anderson, the author of Hot Writing created a collection of 17 digital poems aka interactive poetry. Yardley, PA 1997 being one of them introduced us to a whole new type of poetry I didn’t know existed. I thought this was a very interesting take on keeping those who don’t really enjoy poetry to be entertained. Not me, I love poetry. But I can definitely see someone playing around with this and making multiple different poems. I deeply appreciated the fact as readers who get a say on how we’d like this poem designed as well as how we’d like this poem to sound. I played around with this poem quite a bit.. I would literally press each key multiple times just to see what would happen but that in itself was a bit poetic. I was like “ Secret! Secret! Secret! Secret! Secret! Secret! Secret! Secret! Secret! Secret! Secret! Secret!” a whole bunch. I have noticed that with the few e-lit pieces we have completed, they all have a different experiences in terms of how I feel. Throughout this piece, I felt a sense of nostalgia.. like when as kids we’d have xylophones in school or little fun entrustments to keep us distracted at doctors offices. I also tried  playing multiple keys at once, and the tension definitely arose. It was a bit chaotic, as if I had to read the lines really fast so it doesn’t disappear. 

I did find this reddit post where a user named “Toddwords” was answering a few questions about their work with Hot Writing and Yardley PA 1997 gets brought up through the thread. Im obviously not too sure if this is the real Todd Anderson answering these questions but I thought it was kind of interesting. (https://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/5xbwwh/i_am_todd_anderson_creator_of_hotwriting_the/) 

Avenue S 

So for this one, I decided to review the piece “By date” because when I initially started, I will definitely say I was getting a little overwhelmed with all the clicking and where it was taking me. However, clicking through by date was a lot more fun for me because COVID for me feels like it was yesterday. Each date that was provided was a date I vividly remember 5 years ago. I was an essential worker during that time working right by Elmhurst Hospital in Queens, NYC during the time. That hospital was practically ground zero of Nyc due to the high number of cases of covid plus deaths. They literally had body bags outside because there was no room inside. I had to go into work everyday, and if you know anything about the city of Elmhurst, its never quiet. But during covid, it was a ghost town. So the fact I got to choose the date made this a lot more relatable. But again, thats what this e-lit piece is meant to do. The experience depends entirely on your own interaction of it. Honestly, I feel that if this piece included words, it wouldn’t work. The pictures of the desolate city, graffiti, and drawings all create an experience. A haunting experience.

I will say that this piece is about being isolated during this time of covid but going through this piece did not make me feel alone. I felt a sense of connection because its as if we were living this horror at the same time? The dates were like a journal entry and we were living it together. For example, on May 19, 2020..it was my 21st birthday and I didn’t really do anything because covid was at its peak and that date in the poem portrayed the same experience. Masks and social distancing. Lastly, it seems that this poem will not have an ending…because covid is perpetually open in our lives. I still talk about that time as if it was yesterday and my future will be shaped by everything that we went through in 2020. 

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Yardley, PA 1997 & Avenue S

Yardley, PA 1997

I would like to begin this section of my blog to say that I really enjoyed this one. The first time around, I went the linear way. Going across the keyboard from left to right and shifting the keys as the instructions advised. Usually, when looking at electronic literature for this class, I do not read the instructions and just go. For this, I do not know why. I think I just like to go into it and try to figure it out on my own as well as find what speaks to me personally. Though, I do read the statements by the author and the summaries of each piece. So, when I saw that it involved the keyboard, I knew I had to buckle up.

I expected something a bit more radical than what it actually was. I think I was more so expecting some kind of crazy technique requirement that I could not keep up with. Though, I was pleasantly surprised when all I had to do was make my way down the keyboard and press new keys once the words and music began to fade away. I thought the delivery of the poem was quite beautiful, and really mimics the way we read poetry on paper. Although there is no fade away of the words or built-in music to accompany our reading, the way in which both of those aspects carry the piece is a great way to creatively imagine what goes on in our heads when we read poetry. Things oftentimes click in our heads from line to line, creating a personal symphony. Yardley, PA 1997 helps us do this in a way that is more connected to another’s experience. Unlike the other pieces of ELIT we have read so far, this one stands out because you can go through it the same way another person does, or not. The choice is yours, and I really enjoy that idea.

Lastly, I would like to discuss the content a bit. I think the way in which the author brings about the various aspects of 1997 in Pennsylvania and the specific instances in which they live through was really beautiful because it made room for readers to connect in their own way. Specifically, the short section of about the brother, and how the author reflects that they should have told him they loved him more. I really liked how there were times in which we knew we were not in Yardley, PA, but instead taken back into our own lives, wherever that may be, and given a chance to reflect.

Overall, this was a really great piece, and I think I will find myself returning back to it. I enjoyed its simplicity and the fact that it had no “tricks” or hidden meanings — it was all laid out for us to type through and reflect on.

Avenue S

Reading first, of course, what Avenue S is about, I was immediately pulled in. There are plenty of COVID-19 experiences written and heavily discussed today, but I knew that this rumination would be an outstanding one. First, just stating right off the bat that the speaker missed urban life is a statement that everyone though in some way or another, but to just be laid out in such a way that is pointed and speaking for itself was a great way to start. The world at large missed so many things for a great amount of time that just admitting we missed a part of our lives demonstrates a vulnerability that is pertinent to literature tackling such matters.

Clicking through the dots and mandalas, the first page that really connected with me was “bouncing off the walls” . The way in which the simplistic art renders itself is really fantastic. The constant movement of the stick figures demonstrated quite well the shell of people experiencing the pandemic, and how we were limited to just a specific space — in this case, the screen. Additionally, the lack of color in this section goes to show how staying in one place, forcefully, can remove the color we have in our lives because we are not out experiencing what we otherwise would have. Once clicking on the three dots, I was brought to “butterflies in the stomach”. Again, we are met with a simplistic stick figure who seems to fade into themselves, generating a gear, or a butterfly, preparing to take off. I find this an interesting way to symbolize the anxiety felt during these unprecedented times, especially because this gear-looking image is composed of smaller human-like figures. Not only can this symbolize the many facets of one’s own personality ruminating in a way that works against one’s own person, but how the expectations and well-being of others was also a great source of worry for people during this time.

Lastly, I wanted to discuss “endless cycle”. I think this page put into perspective the idea that life-altering events will always happen, whether on a scale as massive as COVID-19, or on a personal scale. Though this may seem to be a bleak perspective, I choose to see this animation as somewhat hopeful, as the stick figure, after falling and sliding, continuously gets back up. Yes, the figure does fall again after getting back up, but it’s the action of rising again that intrigues me, and makes me hope that in moments of failure or sorrow, I am able to get back up again, even if its just to go through the same sort of perilous time again and again.

Overall, I quite enjoyed the flashback to 2020-21 that this piece brought. I found myself more drawn to the simplistic features of this piece because it allowed for more connection. Using a simple stick figure really works well here because anyone can input themselves and their own experiences into this work. It is also really interesting to. be interacting with this piece now, as COVID-19 has been behind us for a few years now. In day-to-day life today, it’s easy to just go on and not think about what happened to us not so long ago, but it was a major life event for all of us. Though, moving through this work, it was really interesting to be brought back to that time (I was a junior in high school!) and reflect on it today. How easily we forget.

student blogs

Exploring Façade and Welcome Home

I wasn’t actually able to get Façade to run (apparently that’s pretty common—it’s an older work that doesn’t always work with newer systems), but I read quite a bit about it. It’s described as an “interactive drama” where you, the player, show up at the apartment of a married couple, Trip and Grace, who are in the middle of a fight. You can type your own dialogue and the characters respond, sometimes in unpredictable ways.

Even just reading about it, I could tell how unique it must have been when it came out. I loved it and was a little bummed that I wasn’t able to play with it.  The idea that a computer could listen to you and react emotionally feels kind odd and yet compelling. What I found most interesting is how it explores communication and miscommunication. You step into someone else’s relationship and try to help (or maybe make things worse). Being an actual communication major this really interested me.  I did check on-line and notice that everyone else was able to get into Façade, I was a bit jealous, but my technology was just not compatible.  I was really sorry that I had not bought a Mac Book earlier on my graduate school experience (now). 

Welcome Home, which I did get to explore seemed a bit different.  I couldn’t imagine that it twas a traditional e-lit story but rather a multimedia project that blurs the line between archive, nostalgia, and interactive storytelling. The premise seem to be that there was once a 1970s children’s show called Welcome Home, which has supposedly been rediscovered and restored through “The Welcome Home Restoration Project.” The website is full of colorful artwork, letters, hidden clues, and strange, almost dreamlike details about the show’s characters, like Wally Darling and his neighbors.

What pulled me in was how interactive it all feels. You start scrolling and clicking through images and “archived” materials, and before you know it, you’re part of the story. It’s like an internet rabbit hole where you’re both the audience and the detective, trying to piece together what really happened. 

I enjoyed my time with Welcome Home and I hope to check-out Façade the next time I’m on a macbook. 

student blogs

Welcome Home

The cast of Welcome Home. From left to right: Howdy, Frank, Julie, Wally, Barnaby, Sally, Eddie, and Poppy.

🌼 Welcome Home: Restoration of Memory, Media, and Mystery

Welcome Home is a collaborative archival project centered on the imaginative recovery of a forgotten children’s puppet show. Led by anonymous volunteers, the initiative seeks to reconstruct the visual and cultural remnants of a fictional television program that aired between October 11, 1969, and 1974. Though no footage has been found, the project draws from enduring materials such as illustrated storybooks, vinyl records, cereal boxes, home décor, and children’s toys, many of which were discovered in ink-stained envelopes and fragmented documents.

The show, created by the enigmatic Playfellow Workshop, featured a cast of puppet neighbors living in a colorful, blossom-filled community. These characters are now being reintroduced through a vibrant website that mimics the aesthetics of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Bright oranges, blues, greens, and yellows evoke the era’s countercultural spirit peace signs, hippie motifs, and Black cultural resistance while also framing a deeper narrative about memory, media, and loss.

The website includes interactive pages such as Welcome Home, Guestbook, News, Discover, and the Playfellow Exhibition, each offering insight into the show’s imagined history. Volunteers invite the public to help identify characters and contribute to the restoration effort, turning the project into a participating archive.

More than a sentimental exercise, Welcome Home explores how stories are preserved, distorted, or forgotten. It raises questions about cultural memory, media decay, and the emotional resonance of lost narratives. For students, artists, and scholars, the project offers a compelling intersection of visual storytelling, archival practice, and speculative fiction.

Critical reflection on memory, media decay, and the stories we choose to preserve or forget

I find Welcome Home to be a compelling example of how fictional archives can evoke emotional and cultural resonance. The project’s blend of cheerful aesthetics and weird undertones invites critical reflection on memory, media decay, and the stories we choose to preserve or forget.

What fascinates me most is how Welcome Home uses visual storytelling and fragmented artifacts to simulate the process of recovery, mirroring the invigorating work of reconstructing identity through narrative. It is not just a lost puppet show; it is a metaphor for cultural amnesia, collective sentimental, and the haunting beauty of what remains.

Welcome Home offers a rich space to explore the intersections of fiction, design, and archival imagination. It reminds us that even invented histories can carry truth, and that restoration whether personal or cultural is always an act of societal responsibility.

Welcome Home and the Construction of Nostalgia Through Fandom | ARGNet: Alternate Reality Gaming Network

student blogs

Two Doors, Two Worlds

In exploring digital literature, few experiences have contrasted as strikingly as Welcome Home and Façade. Both works invite us into intimate spaces, a home, an apartment, a world that feels alive, and yet what unfolds inside those spaces couldn’t be more different. One pulls us into the comforting embrace of nostalgia and imagination, while the other confronts us with the messy, unpredictable emotions of adulthood.

My experience with Façade was mostly through YouTube videos, yet it still managed to pull me in. It’s strange how something so minimal in design can feel so human. Watching Grace and Trip argue, confess, and crumble felt invasive but also deeply real. Every interaction carried emotional weight. You could say one wrong thing and the whole night would fall apart. Even as a viewer, I felt tense, caught between wanting to help and knowing I couldn’t really fix them. It was comical at times, but underneath the humor was something uncomfortable; the quiet truth that sometimes, love doesn’t feel like home anymore.

Then came Welcome Home, and the shift was immediate. Suddenly, I was surrounded by color, warmth, and friendship. Wally Darling’s cheery voice and the gentle community around him felt like a return to childhood, a simpler time where kindness mattered and everyone had a place. It reminded me of Sesame Street, where every character, no matter how quirky, was loved and accepted. There was something comforting about that, especially after the chaos of Façade.

While Façade showed me the cracks that can form in relationships and communication, Welcome Home reminded me why those connections matter in the first place. It’s about understanding, patience, and finding joy in togetherness. Even knowing that Welcome Home exists now only through restoration efforts, there’s something beautiful in the way people are coming together to preserve it. The anonymous team behind The Welcome Home Restoration Project isn’t just saving a piece of media—they’re saving a feeling. That’s what art does when it’s loved enough: it lives on through the people who care about it.

Experiencing both works side by side made me think about how important it is to preserve not just art, but the emotions it carries. Façade captures the complexity of adulthood; the frustration, miscommunication, and longing, while Welcome Home keeps the child inside us alive. In a world that often feels heavy and divided, we need both kinds of art. One helps us face our reality; the other helps us dream beyond it.

For me, Welcome Home isn’t just about restoring a show, it’s about restoring a part of ourselves. It’s proof that love, joy, and imagination never really disappear. They just wait quietly, like Wally Darling, ready to welcome us back home.

student blogs

Facade and Welcome Home

Façade was a bit of a mess for me. Since I have a MAC, I was not able to access the game and play it on my own. Because of this I had to watch a number of walkthroughs on YouTube to get a chance to see the game. I feel like I missed out on actually fully experiencing the game on my own, but I was happy that it is still preserved for people to see, even if it is incompatible with more modern systems. I found Façade to be a good time. It was interesting to see how the players interaction can change the dynamic of the overall conversation. In conventional literature, ending can be open-ended but are singular. Here, the player’s (or reader) can create branching paths that actually affect the way the game ends. Another thing that stood out from watching different play throughs was how the characters of Grace and Trip react to what the player chooses to say or side with. This dynamic characterization really made the characters stand out way more than I expected them to. Seeing their gratitude and disappointment when you choose to side with one or another was a really fascinating feature. In seeing how the game can end in different scenarios, I think I can see some of the authors intent. In creating these two dynamic characters, the authors wanted players to pick a side based on their own thought process. Some players might see Trip as the main issue in the relationship, with the same being said for Grace. Some players might want to play peace makers and end up getting both characters to reveal their doubts and infidelities. Façade was a very cool piece of E-lit overall.

Welcome Home was also a great work to see. Lost media is one of the most intriguing things look for. Trying to prove the existence of a piece of work seemingly lost to time and presenting those findings seem to be time consuming but fulfilling. In my spare time, I sometimes go down the rabbit hole in looking into lost media, so Welcome Home and the work that goes into these types of projects was something I have seen before. The work and care it took to build this database, redraw and animate old works and track down old merchandise is crazy to think about. The overall website is very impressive to say the least. The only thing that really surprised me was to see that this can be considered E-lit. I would be lying if I was not confused when I opened this link and went through the website for the first time. Over time, I thought about some of the historical non-fiction books I have read and began to see Welcome Home in a similar light. Although it is not bound and written on paper, Welcome Home must have taken immense amount of research and work to put together this project, in the same way some of the book I have read had. Preservation of older media is an important issue to take up since many works by creative people throughout history can be lost to time. Seeing these older works being appreciated and brought to modern audiences is really cool to see.

student blogs

Facade and Welcome Home

Hey Everyone.

Facade

This is an example of a piece of text that needs to be interactive fiction. Being a 3-d game makes the reader a character in the narrative who experiences the events 1st hand. Reading this in a non interactive way would remove the sense of tension. Having the reader input responses instills nervous emotions since the reader has the chance to make the situation worse. And after making choices you have to stay in the couple’s house and wait till they tell you to leave which add such much weight to the already tense story.

Welcome Home

I love the framing of this interactive narrative as lost media. The beginning of the narrative explains how Welcome Home was a children’s TV show that aired on an unknown channel. This is a believable narrative and maybe this piece is actually truthful? This aspect helps provide motivation for me to navigate. The What’s Welcome Home? page is a small amount of information with hyperlinks that provide more information about the show. I didn’t hesitate to click the hyperlink to learn more. The news section was extremely interesting to me. Normally, I wouldn’t pay too much mind to a news section a site like this because it’s normally just updates about the site or the authors. It’s so interesting to read about the authors attempts to uncover Welcome Home and it all sounds so believable. The neighborhood was my favorite part because it was so colorful and lively. It was awesome to learn about all of the characters and hear the soundbites.